Hmm… a good day today but am currently pondering a few things educationally and behaviour wise and wondering whether they are linked.
Went to Rachel’s this morning for tea and chats. We found our easy way of chatting and fell back into it again so that was a relief. The kids were pretty well behaved but I was conscious that they were playing with E’s toys while he was at school and I know Rachel was too.
We had some indepth chats about birth order, gender differences, how many children is a good number, what effects siblings have on each other and so on – all very interesting stuff. Arranged to meet up and do something next week while E is on Easter holidays – will be interesting to see what changes full time school has made as we have not seen him for ages and ages.
Popped into town and bought a few bits, Scarlett fell asleep (bad 🙁 but she went to sleep ok tonight so fingers crossed that last nights bad one was a one off blip!). Once home I gave Davies the option of what he wanted to do and he chose playdough so I got that out and they both sat at their tables and did very creative stuff with it all. I did stick Cbeebies on and as they have not seen it for a while they were both really pleased to watch stuff like Boo! – I read somewhere today someone talking about TV stunting children (that old debate) and once again I totally disagree – I think it is a very valuable resource as long as that is not all they have – both of my two have learnt huge amounts from TV, it has inspired them in their creative play and well made children’s TV has huge educational value – they were both joining in with the games on Boo – and watching it ‘together’ talking about it between the two of them and so on, so it was actually quite a sociable activity too!
I sat on my laptop in the lounge with them and knocked out a bit more work (and read some blogs!) which is exactly how I would love it all to happen – me working and them doing their thing, side by side, in the room together with frequent interaction, so that was nice 🙂
Been doing my regular pondering on Davies again today – as ever I have no real concerns about Tarly – she is doing just fine in every possible developmental area. She is also very good at orchestrating one to one time as and when she needs it. Davies seems somehow less able and we end up in the bad behaviour attention seeking getting negative attention type cycle. I so don’t want to fail Davies. His needs were the reason I started looking into HE in the first place – looking back at what I percieved his needs to be two years ago and reconciling them with the boy he is today is often difficult to do and I still have this nagging feeling that he *needs* something which I either can’t or don’t manage to supply. OTOH I feel he is ready for and would benefit from some more academic *work* – when I do manage to get time with him he responds well to stuff like reading and writing and numbers, but that sort of one to one time is hard to snatch 🙁 I know he is getting literacy and numeracy stimulation in our daily lives and if I am totally honest perhaps this is more to do with my own hothousing tendancies than anything he is demonstrating but I don’t ever want to feel I have done him a disservice by ‘sitting and waiting’ if he is secretly ready for more.
The other thing – and this is where I feel it may be linked – is that his behaviour has been quite challenging. Several times over the last few days when he has been told off for doing something over and over after having been told not to and I am then nice to Tarly for something unrelated he asks why I love her more than him. I would NEVER do that emotional blackmail thing with the kids by being nice to one to upset the other – my mum did it with us and I don’t think either child is getting anything positive from it, and I know he is just pushing my buttons but I so don’t want to be locked in combat with him 🙁 He is demonstrating what I believe to be ‘normal’ four year old boy behaviour – his pretend play games often contain quite violent happenings and I overhear him saying cruel things to Tarly – who he adores most of the time. I do give him as much one to one as is feasible – nothing exciting but he will often come to the supermarket with me if Ady is home to look after Tarly and we always really enjoy that time on our own, just don’t know how to get more of it in. I think I might plan in not a lot for the next couple of weeks and try some more structured days at home with perhaps a bit more focus on workbooky type activties and see how we get on…
Nic, the finding time thing is sonething I still struggle with, it’s a constant juggling act – will write more about it if I can think of anything sensible to say.
Just really wanted to ask where you got your BOGOHP Geomags from?? Are they still on offer in your Woolies?
Comment by Alison — 23 March 2005 @ 2:37 pm
Woollies again yeah. They were on offer, then it stopped but yesterday when I went in the main one in town they were on again. I need to stop buying them really, even at BOGOHP I must have a couple of hundred quids worth now!
Davies really wants to build the huge tower thing off the advert but that must be about £4K worth needed to attempt such a structure.
Would appreciate any advice or thoughts on one to one stuff as and when you manage them 🙂
Comment by Nic — 23 March 2005 @ 7:51 pm